Jon Mills is president of the Florida Forum for Progressive Policy. He is Dean Emeritus, Professor of Law, and Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law.
In addition to teaching at the College of Law, he has taught and lectured in Constitutional Law, International Trade and Environment in Costa Rica, Brazil, the University of Warsaw and Cambridge University. He has authored books, law review articles and reports on constitutional issues, environmental issues, voting rights, and ethics in government.
Mills served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. During his ten years in the Legislature he sponsored the Florida Growth Management Act; the Child Abuse Prevention Act and the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing Individual Privacy (Article I§23) against governmental intrusion. He was a member of Florida’s 1998 Constitution Revision Commission, was named its most valuable member and chaired the style and drafting committee. Since 2004, he has chaired the Florida’s Supreme Court Committee on Privacy and Court Records.

Loranne Ausley is serving her third term in the Florida House of Representatives. Her district includes most of Tallahassee and a part of adjoining Jefferson County. She is an attorney with over 20 years of public service at the state and federal level.
Representative Ausley's legislative agenda has focused around the issues important to Leon and Jefferson Counties: protection of state employees and state jobs; economic development; healthcare; and education, particularly early childhood initiatives. She serves as Statewide Chair for Florida Parents' and Children's Day and as Chairman of Whole Child Leon, a local community initiative focused on early childhood. Ausley also serves on the boards of the American Cancer Society and the Tallahassee Urban League. She received the 2004 Children's Advocate Award from the Florida Parent Teacher Organization and the March of Dimes 2004 Mission Possible Award. She was named the 2003 Legislator of the Year by the Florida School Board Association and the Florida Association of School Psychologists, and received the 2003 Outstanding Legislator Award from the Florida Developmental Disabilities Council.

Martha W. Barnett is a partner in the law firm of Holland & Knight LLP in Tallahassee and serves as chair of the Directors Committee. She is the past chair of the Public Law Department of the firm. Her primary areas of practice are administrative and governmental law, public policy, and state and local taxation.
Ms. Barnett is a member of The Florida Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia. She has extensive associations in the American Bar Association and The Florida Bar. She was president of the American Bar Association in 2000-2001. She also served as the chair of the American Bar Association House of Delegates, the first woman to serve in this position.
She has served as a member of the Florida Chamber Board of Directors, 2001-present; Governor’s Appointee to Constitution Revision Commission, 1997-1998; Governor’s Appointee to Constitutional Taxation & Budget Reform Commission, 1990-1994; Governor’s Appointee to the Florida Commission on Ethics, 1984-1988; Chair, 1986-1987, Governor’s Select Committee on Workforce 2000, 1988-1989; Florida TaxWatch Board of Trustees, Executive Committee, Secretary, 1983-present; Trustee, University of Florida College of Law, 1996-present.

Ellen C. Freidin, is Of-Counsel to Akerman, Senterfitt & Eidson, P.A. in Miami. The focus of her practice is on employment discrimination, sexual harassment and violation of civil rights. In May, 1997, as a member of Florida’s Constitutional Revision Commission, she was the prime sponsor of the successful effort to add women’s rights to the Florida Constitution. For her work on that Commission, she received the “Phoenix Award” from the American Association of University Women, was honored by the Dade County Commission on the Status of Women, and received the “Glass Breaker” award from Florida NOW. She has been named “A Woman of Impact” by the Community Coalition for Women’s History and has received the “Rosemary Barkett Award” from the Florida Association for Women Lawyers.
Ms. Freidin was chair of the Florida Bar Special Committee for Gender Equality in the Profession from 1991-1995. She has served on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Dade County Bar Association and chaired the Dade County Bar’s Judicial Campaign Practices Commission. She was chair of the Judicial Mediation Pilot Project for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit 1984-1987. She was chairperson of the Florida Bar Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee, served on the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission 1983-1987 (chair 1986-87) and the Florida Bar’s Study Commission on Merit Selection and Retention of Judges.

Robert G. Kerrigan is a partner in the firm of Kerrigan, Estes, Rankin, McLeod & Thompson in Pensacola. Originally a Certified Public Accountant, he worked for Price-Waterhouse before completing law school and becoming a public defender and Chief Assistant. In 1973, he went into private practice with emphasis on criminal defense trial work. Over the years, Bob has tried many high-profile murder cases.
Kerrigan was one of eight trial lawyers selected by the Governor of the State of Florida to prosecute the State's claim for Medicaid recovery against the tobacco industry. The case settled during jury selection for, at the time, the largest civil judgment in the history of the United States.
For fifteen years he was a moving force in Citizens to Save Our Beach, a group working to prevent spoliation of Santa Rosa Island. His work for the poor earned him the Florida Bar President's Pro Bono Award for Legal Services to the Poor in 1984. Kerrigan is involved as a volunteer to the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights and has traveled to Cambodia and Malaysia assisting lawyers and human rights advocates being prosecuted by the governments of those countries. He has established an endowed human rights program at Florida State University with special emphasis on Central and South America.

David Lawrence Jr. retired in 1999 as publisher of The Miami Herald to work in the area of early childhood development and readiness. He is president of The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation and “University Scholar for Early Childhood Development and Readiness” at the University of Florida. In 2002 he led the campaign for The Children’s Trust, a dedicated source of early intervention and prevention funding for children in Miami-Dade; he now is its chair. Named by Gov. Jeb Bush to the Florida Partnership for School Readiness, he chaired that oversight board for two terms. He is a national board member of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development. In 2002-3 he chaired the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection. In 2002, he was a key figure in passing a statewide constitutional amendment to provide high-quality pre-K availability for all 4 year olds. In 2004 he was the Governor’s “special assistant for UPK implementation.”  He is a board member and former chair of the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade and Monroe. The David Lawrence Jr. K-8 School, a Miami-Dade Public School for 1,600 students, opens in August 2006 across from the north campus of Florida International University. And a fully endowed chair in early childhood studies has been established in his name at the University of Florida College of Education.

Robert L. Parks is a partner in the firm of Haggard, Parks, Haggard & Lewis in Coral Gables. He is regarded as one of the nation's premier trial lawyers in the areas of personal injury litigation and commercial litigation. His expertise encompasses a variety of civil practice areas including AIDS litigation, aviation law and class action litigation.
His long history of leadership in the trial law field culminated in 2000 when he was elected president of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He also has served as one of seven lawyers on the Florida Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. He has chaired the Miami River Commission, spearheading the cleanup and redevelopment of the Miami River, the river that goes through the heart of Miami.
Parks serves on the Board of Directors, Everglades Foundation; Board of Directors, Southwest Boys and Girls Clubs of Miami, Inc.; Member, Community Relations Board of Dade County, 1981-1986; founding member. Beacon Council;
Board of Trustees, The Nature Conservancy, 1985-1989; · Board of Directors, 1000 Friends of Florida, 1985-1998. He is the recipient of the “National Service to Youth” Award from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; the Conservationist of the Year Award from the Florida State Audubon Society; and the Florida Environmental Service Award from the Florida Defenders of the Environment.

Linda Loomis Shelley is a shareholder and statewide practice chair of the Government, Environmental and Land Department of Fowler White Boggs Banker in Tallahassee. She specializes in governmental, environmental and land use law and represents a variety of public and private sector clients before state, federal and local agencies.

Ms. Shelley was formerly the General Counsel for Governor Bob Graham and for the Department of Community Affairs, where she later served as Secretary for more than three years. She later served as Chief of Staff for Governor Lawton Chiles from August 1995 through January 1999. Previously, she had served as Chief of Staff for Florida Treasurer Bill Nelson. She also served as Assistant Executive Director of Florida Residential Property & Casualty, Joint Underwriting Association in Tallahassee.
Ms. Shelley has served as a member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission, Northern District Member.

Alan Stonecipher is a public policy consultant in Tallahassee. After work as a government and politics reporter early in his career, he served as press secretary to a Louisiana congressman; appointments director to Governor Bob Graham; Executive Director of the Florida Democratic Party; and Communications Director for the Florida Board of Regents.
Stonecipher served as Executive Director of Governor Lawton Chiles’ Commission on Education in 1997-1998, focusing primarily on school crowding and construction needs and on expansion of school readiness opportunities in Florida.
He also served as Project Director for the K-16 Education Reform Task Force of the Business-Higher Education Forum, a partnership of the American Council on Education and the National Alliance of Business. The Task Force conducted a two-year study of business, K-12, and higher education partnerships and issued a report, Sharing Responsibility: How Leaders in Business and Higher Education Can Improve America’s Schools. The project involved studies of education reform in Massachusetts, Texas, Washington and Kentucky, consultations with corporate chief executive officers, college and university presidents, and national education reform organizations.